Who is KerryAnn?
My name is KerryAnn, an Australian who loves our great country and living a simple lifestyle.
Until my late 40’s I worked 50-plus hours a week in my business (alongside my husband who worked even more hours). We were bringing up two teenagers, almost a million dollars in debt, and overstressed.
Today, I live a simple life in the country. I am debt-free. I can work part-time or not at all. I love life and have time to enjoy my hobbies.
My interests include travel, gold prospecting, gem, and stone collection (which I also shape, polish, and turn into jewelry), and blogging.
Selling Up and Starting Over
In late 2007 we made the decision to sell our business which would allow us to completely clear our debt and start over.
We started a second brick-and-mortar business, then turned it mobile. We joined the growing trend of over 50’s traveling full-time time enjoying life, our country, and nature. The business was our income source.
This started our journey towards the simple, happy life we have today. We learned to live in a small space without a gigantic heap of possessions. We camped a lot, managed on a smaller income, and had a wonderful time.
I Love to Write
I am a creator of notes, lists, and journals. I love to keep records of the things that I have learned during my lifetime.
This blog is a journal of my thoughts, travels, lifestyle, and efforts to make money online.
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All good things must come to an end – Maybe?
Ten years into our full-time nomadic lifestyle we realized the product range we were selling was moving in a downward market trend.
Fewer customers, reduced margins, higher business costs, and stronger competition led to a decision to stop traveling and give ourselves time to evaluate the future. We obtained part-time jobs to have an income.
Then the pandemic hit
As a result of the pandemic, people negotiated lockdowns, and I believe many people realized there was more to life than working.
As we were unable to travel during this time, we also decided to change. Instead of continuing to have a business and travel, we bought a cheap house, now work occasionally, and travel a little less.
Working less, early retirement and lifestyle alternatives seem to be getting traction on social media. Rising inflation has caused people to worry about the cost of food, housing, and everyday living costs.
I believe many aspects of my lifestyle can help others. I may have fallen into it instead of meticulously planning my journey, but I realize that sometimes a little luck just needs to be acted upon.
I believe that I can help people who may find themselves looking for options to the traditional 9-5 work-life and the constant pursuit of money over happiness.
Why I Want to Help People
In 2019, I had an experience where I was kicked off an airline.
I had paid my fare 10 months in advance, and because I had a cheap fare and the airline decided to downsize the plane, I was put on a longer later flight. Why me? I was told I had not paid enough for my fare, so I joined the back of the queue. I feel like I was treated like a second-class citizen.
Not happy Richard.
Many people want to get of out their 9-5 and start looking around the internet for ideas. The focus always seems to be on making more money rather than reducing expenses at the same time.
They are often encouraged to continue working and build an online business on the side. While this is not a bad idea, I believe that finding ways to slow down and reduce expenses and stress will result in better results.
Those without a huge budget are shamed for not wanting to fork out thousands of dollars for courses, books, software, and other information.
I couldn’t count the number of times I have heard the saying “If they won’t pull out the credit card, they are not worth worrying about as they won’t make you money .” This makes people feel the same way I did when pushed to the back of the queue.
We may be freebie seekers, but we are human beings first.
Reducing Costs
I believe that the cost of education is often overpriced and unaffordable. A course can be a shortcut and save time, but at what cost?
Some people do have to choose between food on the table and buying information to try and improve their finances. Many could benefit from living a simpler lifestyle and finding affordable options to improve their knowledge.
Early on, I spent thousands of dollars on information without any real results, not through lack of trying.
When funds are tight and we are looking for ways to stretch the dollar further and perhaps earn a little extra, gathering information online can be a minefield. There is free information but there is also outdated information as the internet environment changes quickly.
I do acknowledge that some money is required to build an online business. However, when you have a limited budget it is necessary to ensure that any money spent will give great value.
Freebie seekers can find information if they are prepared to spend thousands of hours doing research, trying things for themselves, and observing what others are doing rather than what they are saying. I have done this.
Sometimes a recommendation is not in the best interests of a beginner and this causes them to fail. Lack of trying or poor skills is often the reason given, not the bad advice received.
Whilst some courses are good and do offer a shortcut to research, many courses, in my opinion, are too expensive. This may be due to the creator needing to recover their marketing costs, not because of the value of the content.
Freebie seekers are not stingy, they just need to apportion funds for maximum benefit.
One goal of my blog is to help people gather information without resorting to a life of debt.
What knowledge and life experience do I have that enables me to help others?
I have spent most of my life living on a low income, and have partnered with my husband to own and operate two businesses, traveled full time for 10 years, had camping adventures, and spent thousands of hours gathering information and learning content marketing.
We lived without a house for 13 years (sold it), have no credit cards, and during our travel years had few possessions to flip to cover emergencies (living in an RV doesn’t allow for many possessions).
We have a leased block of land in a remote area that has served as a home base during the pandemic. Unfortunately, we could not stay there forever and purchased our current home.
We live in a country town where land is cheap. Not a flash house, with two bedrooms, but comfortable and neat inside. There are houses for sale around Australia for under $200K if you are patient and not worried about keeping up with the Jones’.
In the future, we will travel without needing to dedicate time to a retail business. This will allow us to enjoy our hobbies which include hunting for stones and gemstones, prospecting for gold, walking, and photographing scenery and nature.
We aim to create products from stones and gems that we find on our travels and hopefully find some gold to sell.
Creating this blog, the abovementioned products, and our retirement withdrawals will provide a little income to fund our travels. I can return home at any time and work part-time if funds get low.
I will succeed or my life will blow up spectacularly. As I share my life with my readers I am focusing on the former.
Building businesses on a budget
I do have experience building businesses on a budget.
My husband and I started our first mobile business from scratch in 1985 with around $200 in the bank. To turn this into a bricks-and-mortar one, we sold our house to raise $18,000 for working capital.
Our first business gave us an income and like most small businesses a secure job. All spare money was reinvested into the business yet we lived well.
We did not have an aversion to debt, and as it was easy to remortgage our home and increase our credit card limits, we took advantage of this to grow our business and enjoy our life. As a result, we ended up almost a million dollars in debt.
Selling this business 20 years later enabled us to clear all debt and start our second business, which started as a bricks-and-mortar and turned mobile as we leaped to travel full time.
We funded this with the profits from our first business and a mortgage on the house. Selling the house cleared the mortgage.
Gardening, Camping, and Plenty of Outdoor activities
Although we traveled in our teenage years and early twenties, when bringing up a family, we chose to settle in one spot and this did have many advantages.
Owning a house enabled a huge fruit and vegetable garden, we enjoyed camping in our spare weekends, encouraged our kids to play sports, and had lots of fun and adventure.
Although we did have a couple of overseas holidays and many weekends interstate, most travel opportunities were limited to within 500km (300 miles) of our home.
Growing a lot of our food and cooking from scratch helped us to live on a low food budget. Camping, sports, and outdoor activities gave me practical knowledge for living a nomadic lifestyle.
Now I have a house again, I will again grow some of my fruits and vegetables. We rarely eat out.
Changing Priorities.
My goals and priorities changed with age and I decided I no longer wished for a big house (just so I could have rooms I never used and needed to spend so much time cleaning).
I did not want to return to full-time work and wanted a semi-retired lifestyle. Fortunately, my husband had a similar change of heart so we were both on the same page.
Although we stopped traveling during the pandemic, we still lived in our motorhome. Living in a small space has a lot of advantages. It gave us time to build up our savings in preparation for the house we now have.
We continue to live a simple lifestyle with few possessions and are working on improving our health and wellness, building more savings, prospecting for gold, fossicking for stones and gems, and creating jewelry.
At the same time, I am continuing to learn marketing and branding, and growing this blog so we have a future that will provide freedom, enjoyment, and the ability to travel from time to time.
I Love gardening – But.
In our past life, we had acreage and a large garden.
We no longer want to spend a whole day every month, and time after work each day tending to our garden, although it was nice to have an acre of lawn, 50-odd fruit trees, and heaps of vegetable beds, it was a lot of work.
I am in the process of setting up a small garden just for some fresh vegetables. I have been doing a little gardening during the pandemic break. Now I can set up a reticulation system for those times when I am away.
I am keeping it simple.
Living on a low income.
I have always budgeted and lived on varying incomes for most of my life.
During the pandemic, we stayed on our small leased block of dirt without power (we had solar, gas & generator) or mains water, (we carted it in).
Living without utilities teaches you to save water and reduce reliance on power. Living a nomadic lifestyle also teaches you to think carefully about power and water usage.
Both lessons greatly reduced our expenses helping to build our savings.
Supplementing the food budget with our produce helps keep food costs down. Our current vegetable beds are small and provide us with just enough to support our diet. We avoid packaged foods.
We have very few possessions due to downsizing to a motor home, no assets as we sold them earlier, no debts, have closed our business, and have had part-time jobs. Our house now has the necessities like a bed, seating, and white goods. However, there are no bookcases or shelves full of nicknacks.
We are living simply and have saved wherever we can to build up our finances so that we can again have some savings to restart our travel journey and continue our retirement.
The thing is, I can choose to stay or travel as finances and the mood dictates. Freedom is having choices.
Traveling is in our bones.
We want the freedom to travel in our retirement and I want to have an income that comes from something I love to do – dabble with writing and crafts.
By sharing my beautiful country with others, I want to inspire people to take the plunge, get out of the rat race, and enjoy the beautiful countryside. Life is short and it is important to spend it doing the things we love, with the people that matter most to us.
As long as I can do it MyWay I am happy.
Will you join me?
Join me as I share my journey from overworked, stressed out, deeply in debt business owner to relaxed, debt-free, country-bumpkin living a simple life and loving it.
I will share my business knowledge, RV experience, lifestyle, blogging journey, and online resources, document my fossicking and prospecting finds, thoughts, and opinions, and share my joy of nature through photography.
Join my journey here and on social media.
KerryAnn